“You have reached a number that’s been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you’ve reached this recording in error…”
“This lazy ass muthafucka…” I mumbled while throwing leftovers into the microwave.
My mother had a debilitating neurological condition that kept her in pain and unable to care for herself fully. She had good and bad days, but it seemed like the bad days were coming more frequently. As of late, she could no longer stand for long periods without her legs giving out. She had a walker and a wheelchair. Trying to stay independent, she wanted to use the walker predominately. While I was at work, I asked her to use the wheelchair. I couldn’t be at work worried about her falling.
My older brother, Terry, was supposed to share the responsibility of caring for our mother, but he just couldn’t get right. Either he was getting fired from a job or being arrested for going to his girlfriend’s job and threatening her. He depended on his good looks to get him by, and for a long-time, women were falling for it. I guess his luck had run out because whoever was paying his cell bill hadn’t paid it.
“How was work?” Momma asked.
“Don’t try to ask me about my day when you didn’t call me all day. Momma, I need to know about stuff like this. I could’ve come home at lunch or during my resource period to feed you.”
“I’m not a child, Madalee.”
“I never said you were a child! You know you need help sometimes, and that’s what I’m here for. Damn, Momma, I’m sick…”
“Madalee Rose Ann Stevenson, you must’ve gotten tripped by one of those kindergartners and bumped your head. Who the hell you think you cussing at? I’m not your friend. I’m your mother.”
“I wasn’t cursing at you. I’m sorry it slipped out. I’m just worried about you. You spent all your younger years taking care of Terry and me. The least he could do is bring you some food.”
It didn’t matter how sick my mother was. She wasn’t going for me “acting like her friend.”
“You are too young, pretty, and talented to be worried about me all day. If I needed you, I would’ve called you. Do you understand?”
I looked over at my mom. She resembled her mother so much. Her fair skin and dark features were always so beautiful. She still cared for her skin as much as she could and didn’t look anything like a sixty-year-old. She had always been my hero. Wheelchair or not, she was still larger than life to me.
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Now, answer my question and tell me how your day was. Did Mr. um… Mr. Vesey cause you any problems?”
“No, Ma’am. He stays on his side of the building, and I stay on mine. I heard that two female teachers got into an altercation at the club over a guy they were dating simultaneously.”
"Mr. Vesey?"
"He wished! No, a science teacher."
“Wud?”
I finished preparing my mother’s plate while I filled her in on all the school gossip.
CHAPTERTWO
TIBERIUS
“I’ll take the power bowl with salmon.”
“I’ll have the same with chicken,” Jasper said.
Jasper Mills was the theater teacher at RAW. He and I had known each other a couple years before I started at RAW. He was the one who told me about the music position at the school.
We’d just finished our workout and sat down to grab some food before leaving.
“I probably won’t make it to the gym for the next few days. I have to work with the PTA to finish building the set for the production,” Jasper said.
“I have an after-school session with Katrina to go over her solo.”
“Word? Her Momma bringing her?”
“I won’t do the session without an adult present, so I guess it will be her mother or father,” I shrugged.